Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

That would depend on your definition of 'traditional manner'. A troll's knee-jerk defense to any moderation or reason is to play the victim and it's a downward spiral of venom after that.

My point is that this seems like adopting a very defensive stance and that in itself attracts trouble. Do you have more than one example of this?

You're saying to "trolls": "you're such a problem we're having to install sorts of shit..."

Which is precisely what drives trolls.

golinux wrote:

Disclaimer to those who may point a finger in my direction . . . this mod was not my idea but I'm not opposed to giving it a try. I would however prefer that there be no public "shaming" involved that could incite undesirable results. I do think that stats on users that are having a negative effect on this board are a useful metric for possible action..

I fail to see the value in the stats.

So if cliques "nominate" trolls what then? As you're very active here, you must know what goes on anyway. Leaving it to certain members to flag someone up, just seems like an open invitation for abuse. You would surely be able to sniff out potential trouble by now.

Sadly there is no "firewall" solution for this and many of these solutions only serve to alienate decent members.

As I said, I'm against this kind of thing, against surveillance, hypocritical "tagging" or treating everyone like a potential problem, just because of the actions of a few. There will always be personalities and those will clash and the tagging will go berserk in such cases. For me it simply has no value.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

Om further reflection I'm with cynwulf in this case. I run my own forum (nothing to do with OSS) and am a member of another, very large forum (100,000+ members, 1M+ messages, also nothing to do with OSS) which actually removed the 'negative' ratings people could give to posts for precisely the reason stated above: abuse by certain cliques. My own forum runs on phpBB (which doesn't have the ability to rate posts) and I've resisted the urge to upgrade it to a forum engine that does, even though I can see the merits of that, but I'm not willing to spend (much/any) time dealing with those abusing the ratings system.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

cynwulf wrote:

I fail to see the value in the stats.

It would give the admins a sense of how users are reacting to questionable posts though as has been mentioned the numbers can be manipulated. In the past, users have on occasion emailed me when they feel someone else on the board has crossed a line. Perhaps public requests in Forum Feedback would be a better option to suggest a need for administrative action. All I know is that there are times when action might be necessary. We just need to figure out the best way to gauge when and what is appropriate.

Thankfully, this board has fewer issues than most because of the maturity of its members.

An another point . . . post ratings are not on our radar so rest easy on that.

And finally . . . the only cliques I have seen here are trolls banding together.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

It would give the admins a sense of how users are reacting to questionable posts though as has been mentioned the numbers can be manipulated.

It will give you a sense that X doesn't get on with Y. Not much else.

golinux wrote:

In the past, users have on occasion emailed me when they feel someone else on the board has crossed a line.

As a forum admin, you will get this. In general if a member emails you about some other member "crossing the line", it's coming from someone with an agenda.

golinux wrote:

Perhaps public requests in Forum Feedback would be a better option to suggest a need for administrative action. All I know is that there are times when action might be necessary. We just need to figure out the best way to gauge when and what is appropriate.

Precisely, that's for you to gauge - not some forum extension...

golinux wrote:

Thankfully, this board has fewer issues than most because of the maturity of its members.

Which is exactly why you don't need this autonomous forum extension...

golinux wrote:

And finally . . . the only cliques I have seen here are trolls banding together.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

In the past, users have on occasion emailed me when they feel someone else on the board has crossed a line.

As a forum admin, you will get this. In general if a member emails you about some other member "crossing the line", it's coming from someone with an agenda.

I disagree. The emails I have gotten were from well-established, respected contributors to this forum whose only 'agenda' was for the forum to be free of disruption.

The discussion here seems to be pretty much against implementing the troll extension to be publicly viewable. I'm not opposed to a trial run with hidden stats. In any case it would be useful for some to be able to ignore an annoying user.

cynwulf wrote:

golinux wrote:

And finally . . . the only cliques I have seen here are trolls banding together.

I haven't seen any bands of trolls here?

Then you haven't been paying attention. Or maybe it's just semantics . . .

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

golinux wrote:

Perhaps public requests in Forum Feedback would be a better option to suggest a need for administrative action.

There's already a Report button at the bottom of each post, but it looks like it hardly ever gets used. 90% of the reports are for spam, and we don't even get those anymore. (Thanks, Ralph!) Maybe we just need to point out that button's existence in the top post. Or maybe we don't - this is a pretty calm board, even when it heats up.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

If I understand it right, the basic tenet against a published Troll Count is on the line that it's more likely to be (mis-) used by a bunch of dickheads banding together to wield dickheadary against some normal adult member, than that it's used by the normal adult members as (weak) indicator towards the censoring of a dickhead.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

Not being one to align myself with dickheadism, and being of sound mind and body...sans any reference to dickheadedness in regard to the body , and having the wherewithal of being both a member and an administrator of other forums, I do hereby declare that in reference to trollstances, administrators can certainly benefit from the input of forum members in regard to trollism; whereby, administrators can be alerted to certain things that may not immediately catch their attention otherwise. Said administrators still have the option of acting upon said supratrollitarianism regardless of a member's (or members') input.

...n'stuff.

I have been Devuanated, and my practice in the art of Devuanism shall continue until my Devuanization is complete. Until then, I will strive to continue in my understanding of Devuanchology, Devuanprocity, and Devuanivity.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

While the troll behavioural analysis might be fun, it's merely an open invitation for "more of the same please". The more of a big deal you make of this, the more of a big deal it will become. I'm still not entirely sure how a low traffic forum with ~ 600 member, most of which are likely not active can have such a major troll problem, major enough to warrant the installation of countermeasures? I can only assume I missed it, that's possible as I haven't been here in a while.

So far most members who have responded to this have requested that the countermeasures be either watered down or for the "threshold" to be raised. This may indicate that the members who are not causing trouble may not be completely in favour of this, or may have some reservations.

Panopticon made a good point earlier:

Panopticon wrote:

The internet is a tool, not a social experiment in my opinion and those that want to use it for social purposes will reap the rewards good and bad. Im still analog when it comes to being social.

I would say that could be extended to "social experiments" where forum staff try to discipline trolls and "modify behaviour".

Sadly the WWW is what it is, some people won't fall into line and you really only have two options.

If someone enters your establishment and trashes the place, you don't allow them to remain on condition they wear a sign over their head. You boot them out and be done with it. That's really the only two options you have - allow them to remain or boot them out.

Perhaps if people post about "technical stuff" and just populate the forum with useful threads, this problem might solve itself.

Re: The dev1galaxy.org (almost) No Code of Conduct

cynwulf wrote:

If someone enters your establishment and trashes the place, you don't allow them to remain on condition they wear a sign over their head. You boot them out and be done with it. That's really the only two options you have - allow them to remain or boot them out.

A very good point. I see no reason to have "troll" members in the forum or when somebody comes here to register and see the forums has a bunch of "default" trolls participating in the community. That is no good promotion.

Also the administrators are here to control and decide, that is why they have mod powers. It is not the task of forum members to "police" the forums. Sure they can report such behavior and help out but if everybody has the power to make someone a troll then it can rapidly get out of control and the outcome will be the opposite.

It would be better that mods and administrators decide together who is the troll and how to deal with him/her and then just ban them or delete their accounts. There is no point of marking members as unwanted but still have them here wearing a sign.